How was your exam?

*Note: This post was originally part of my "Seventeen Going on Eighteen" one, but I decided to split it so that it's easier to read. Less is more! Hahaha. I hope I didn't bore anyone! ;)

Does anyone want to know how my exams went? Oh, and it's not over yet (although most people are celebrating like it really is over), because I still have a subject to sit for .. namely EST (English for Science & Tech) on December 2nd. And that's the end of the exam for me! ;) Some of my friends, like Denise and Tse Mun, still have Accounts to sit for on Decemeber 5th... but anyway, Yi Ping's throwing a party on December 3rd (I was thrilled when she told me, Yi Ping throws great parties!).. celebraaaaaaaateeeeee...Oh yeah, I was going to tell you how SPM went for me (I really enjoyed reading Tysern's version of the exam -- check out his blog entries! ahah!)... ok so we start off with BM on November 14th (that was Lee Ting's birthday, and I forgot! See, that's why I said, I didn't expect anyone to remember mine, haha.. I usually make the effort to remember my friends' birthdays and stuff, because I realised how happy people will be when someone wishes them happy birthday... cos that means they really care enough to remember..) anyway, BM was, for me, a strange paper.. Mostly because the karangan I chose to write was almost exactly the same as the one I chose for my SPM trials (i.e: sahsiah), but I was relieved because I felt that I was under a lot of pressure to do my best in BM .. I also was very, very scared about the possibility of not passing the paper -- which is an unbearable thought because you have to pass BM to pass the whole SPM exam. It's a compulsory paper to pass! I was extremely relieved after the Paper 1 was over.

BM Paper 2 was really, really difficult. Denise pointed out to me that the black line on the left-hand side of the exam booklet's cover indicates how difficult/easy a paper is predicted to be by the government. The higher, the easier. The lower, the more difficult.. it's pretty accurate, I was amazed. Anyway, the BM Paper 2 was much harder than I thought it would be. But strangely enough, I like doing the Paper 2. I like having to write and write mechanically without having to put too much thought into the answer. BM is a lot easier for me than say, Biology, Chemistry or Physics. Hahaha, thank you Mr Goey! Five years of tuition with you have, I believe, not gone completely to waste.Sejarah 1 (objective) was ok, although I made more mistakes than I would've preferred (but less than 10 is good enough for me, haha!).. the next day (November 15th) splashed us with both English papers and Sejarah 2 (subjective).

It was an absolute NIGHTMARE for me! First of all, I didn't know all my facts (I have a tendency to neglect History, thinking "Aiya, it can't be that bad riiight.. how hard can they make it?").. and second of all, I have a tendency to confuse my facts when under pressure. So you can imagine how I felt when I opened the exam booklet and realised that I didn't know how to answer any of the structure questions? I thought that when the exam came, I would be able to look at a question and have the answers at my fingertips, but nooo... it wasn't that way for me! I had to flip here and there, answering questions randomly; picking all the easier ones to answer... and before long, it wasn't looking so bad; I didn't immediately know any answers but after some thinking (this is what I hate about thinking subjects!), I managed to scrawl out some plausible answers.. the Mat Salleh question was hilarious, I was just writing stuff like "SBBU bakar kampung Mat Salleh" and "SBBU menjanjikan Tambunan, tetapi memungkiri janji dan ambil semula Tambunan".. hahah!!

When I read Tysern's blog, he said he wrote like 10 stuff for that Mat Salleh question, and I started laughing, because I had to spend like 10 minutes wracking my brain to just fill in those FOUR blanks that they provided us with! I didn't write any extra answers for anything, was too lazy to .. ahah.. I just vomitted out answers that I was sure about, and didn't touch them any more. Fortunately, I managed to hold firm to my "Leave nothing blank" principle and crapped answers for all the blanks they gave.. and I didn't have to resort to crazy stuff like one midterm question I answered .. "Senaraikan kesan Kesultanan Melayu Melaka ke atas sistem pentadbiran Negeri-negeri Melayu" or some rash like that, and I just had to fill in the last blank with "Gula Melaka" because I couldn't think of anything else. *shakes head laughing*

But Sejarah came up with a slight change in questioning, they didn't ask straightforward questions this time.. the new style of questions reminded me painfully of... *drumroll*... MORAL! There were questions like "Apakah yang anda telah belajar tentang kepentingan sejarah?"... something along those lines, can't really remember... The essay part was like a series of bad headaches for me.. I couldn't say anything for sure and had to write everything I knew about anything having to do with the words in the questions. I thought I had done the paper horribly (so badly that I wasn't sure if I could even pass History), but when I got home and checked out some of the facts in my textbooks, it turns out that I had crapped pretty accurately! But seriously, it was just luck. So much of exams depends on luck! And also, the day before History, me and Tse Mun were on the phone for hours discussing the Islam chapters. And because of that, I could remember the facts. :)

After that, we had Modern Mathematics.. it has really become my favourite subject next to toughies like The Sciences (with a capital T) and Add Math. I made one really annoying mistake where I somehow didn't get around to reading the important part of an instruction (stupid panjang lengkung clue -- that's the one I missed) so I couldn't answer one of the objective questions.. my Add Math tutor checked my Mod Math objective paper, and that was my single mistake! Hahah, frustrated as I am about it being a careless mistake, I'm still really happy about making only one mistake.. because I'm not all that great in my Paper 2! In the usual school exams, I normally struggle with a couple of questions in Paper 2, and "a couple" is already a lot because there are not that many questions in one paper to start with. But this time, it was great! My hand was shaking throughout the entire exam because I was so nervous, but thankfully it was my left hand and I could still do all the questions .. so I really hope that I can get an A for Mod Math!

Of course, Mod Math wasn't the killer paper of the week... it was the following day's paper... PHYSICS. Me and Physics are complete strangers. We don't have anything in common. If Physics were a real person, we'd just say hello and then an awkward silence would fall. Physics wouldn't even return my smile. But heyhey, Physics was not at all like I expected! The limited information I knew about Physics was all tested! My favourite parts - inersia, impuls, gravity.. and there was only ONE chapter that I studied for Physics, which was Form 4 Chapter 3: Sifat Jirim... and guess what... that came out too... Prinsip Bernoulli. Suddenly I realised that me and Physics weren't enemies after all, we were just kinda shy. It took Physics a really long time (about 23 months) to warm up to me.. and it did right on time for the exam day. I found myself falling madly in love with Physics, Physics and all its worldly charms. For the first time in the two years that I have taken Physics in an exam, I could answer at least half of each paper (3 papers altogether). That's good enough for me! ;)

After Physics we had a nice four-day break before Moral & Add Math. Moral kinda stinked, because when I was checking my answers, I changed the first one .. to a wrong answer. This always happens when I check my answers, I end up doubting what I first wrote and end up changing it to a wrong one. Add Math 1 was okay, not so bad but I wasn't sure about a few sums.. and I had so much time left over that I copied out all the questions and (my) answers on to a spare piece of paper... I'm handing it to my Add Math tutor, he said he'll check it for me. I've given him my Mod Math paper too. Add Math 2, now that was a real pain in the arse! I couldn't answer the last bit of almost EVERY question (they have long questions, like number 1 (a)(b)(c)(d))... so I was really panicking during the final hour of the exam. I didn't have a minute to spare, and I would have found more time useful, but I just did all I could .. on the dot... haha I know some people still continute writing after the invigilator says "Pens down" but I've never been able to bring myself to do it -- what if she grabbed my paper and tore it to a million tiny pieces? *the horror* When I got home, I couldn't resist checking how many marks worth of questions I was actually able to do... and *phew* it wasn't so bad! I could answer for questions than I ever managed to for any school exam. Sure, maybe not an A, but at least not a failing grade..*grins* I have no idea how everyone else in the country did, so nobody can ever be totally sure about what kind of grade they could get. It's all weighted, right? If that's the word for it.. weighed, weighted, scaled? Hah! Help me out here, Jacklyn Oh! ;)

Then... another long break (five days actually) before this week.. we had Chemistry yesterday and Biology today. Chemistry really planted a lot of fear in me before the exam. I was very, very scared that I didn't know enough to even pass (I've honestly never gotten more than 41% in a school exam before), and extremely nervous about getting at least a credit like my parents wanted me to.. (they don't want to put too much pressure on me, so they just asked for at least credits ... ;)) ... but the Chem paper wasn't as difficult as in past year papers.. maybe they made it a bit easier because the number of students failing Chem in SPM has been increasing? Well I don't know if it's increasing all over M'sia, but my school's never had anyone fail Chem in SPM until last year (2004).. so it must mean that the paper was getting too difficult... maybe. Anyway, I only studied the first four chapters of Chemistry Form 4, and the first two chapters of Form 5. Luckily, most of the questions were from those chapters! I was so relieved about being able to answer the essay questions. I dunno how I did for the objective, but I'm planning to call Alyaa after SPM to get the answers (she has them already, my Chem schoolteacher is her aunt so she's checked them for her).

Biology was so bad that I could cry. But being me, I did the contrary and laughed about how incredibly stupid I can be. I think most people thought Bio was pretty hard.. Jon texted me and said something about "jackshit" -- hahaha!! That made me laugh so hard. Oh, and the weirdest thing happened right before the exam -- I was about to read the Kasturi seminar answer sheet when I put the paper on the rest of my papers on the balcony (was discussing Bio before the exam with Sahira there) -- and the paper just flipping FLEW down to the badminton courts below. Me and Sahira (or is it Sahira and I? Goodness, someone has to teach me this stuff! I honestly cannot tell the difference) watched, open-mouthed, as it fluttered divinely to the floor. Great. Just great. The invigilator was calling us all to get into the classroom for the exam, and my last-minute reference literally flew out the window. Not a window. A balcony. I was going to read the gizi seimbang wanita mengandung before the exam so that it'd still be fresh in my head, but I couldn't very well run all the way downstairs to get the paper, read it and then get back on time for the exam, could I? So me and Sahira laughed and got into the classroom. And guess what? Gizi seimbang wanita mengandung was NOT tested. *rolls around laughing*

Okay, okay this entry is now so long that nobody's going to read up to this point. Hahah, well, good luck for EST and Accounts, y'all!